History of Fushimi: From the Edo Period to the Bakumatsu Era — Port Commerce, the Fushimi Magistrate, the Chushojima Pleasure Quarter, and the Incidents of the Late Edo Period

About the Appeal of Fushimi-Momoyama

Even after Fushimi Castle was dismantled in 1623, the people and goods moving between Kyoto and Osaka did not disappear. Fushimi, where boat traffic on the Takase River and toward the Yodo River crossed the highways leading to Kyoto, kept its inns for boat passengers, its businesses handling cargo, and a magistrate’s office that administered traffic and the town. The change from a castle town to a port and commercial city cannot be understood by looking only at the site of the castle. [2, 48]

The pleasure quarter of Chushojima is also part of this port town’s history. In the Genroku era, a bridge was built and a pleasure quarter was relocated in anticipation of the visitors passing through the port of Fushimi. Alongside the prosperity of the port, this article also traces the history of the people who lived and worked there. [44, 46]

The port Hideyoshi opened remained in use after the castle was gone

The development of the port of Fushimi began in 1594, when Hideyoshi opened a port to bring in building materials for Fushimi Castle. The works that drew the flow of the Uji River toward Fushimi and laid out embankments and roads around Ogura Pond remained as transport infrastructure even after construction of the castle was finished. Fushimi’s location, midway along the river linking Kyoto and Osaka and also adjoining the overland route toward Nara, did not change after the castle was abandoned. [1] [90]

However, the Edo-period port did not have the Misu Lock that can be seen today. The Misu Lock is a facility built in 1929 to raise and lower boats between the Horikawa Canal and the Uji River, which have different water levels. Distinguishing the Edo-period landings and boat traffic from the Shōwa-era embankments and lock shows that the port was used while its structure changed from one era to the next. Modern River Transport and the Misu Lock explains these changes together with construction photographs. [32]

Cargo and travelers between Kyoto and Osaka changed boats at Fushimi

On the Kyoto side, the waterway was the Takase River. This canal, opened by Suminokura Ryōi, a wealthy Kyoto merchant who engaged in trade and river excavation, together with his son Soan and others, extended south from Kyoto’s urban area and, by way of Fushimi, connected with boat traffic on the Yodo River. Fushimi, where boats using the Takase River and boats on the Yodo River bound for Osaka came and went, was a relay point where boats large and small gathered. [2]

Ryōi and Soan, father and son, developed waterways suited to boat transport and turned the carriage of goods into a business. Small boats on the Takase River entered Kyoto’s urban area, while at Fushimi goods were passed on to boats on the Yodo River or to overland transport. The bustle of the port also arose from the work of transferring cargo between different means of transport. [81]

Takasebune were small, flat-bottomed boats made to pass through shallow waterways, and they were moved forward by people hauling them. The City of Kyoto’s cultural heritage survey records that bolts of cloth and other goods were also carried. Cargo that arrived at Fushimi was also sent on to Kyoto not only by water but by ox cart. On the Takeda Highway, a cart road paved with stones was laid so that the wheels would not sink into the road surface. Water transport and land transport worked together to carry goods to Kyoto. [46]

Sanjikkokubune and other boats gathered near Kyōbashi. The area was also used as a departure and arrival point for the alternate-attendance journeys (sankin-kōtai) of daimyo from western Japan, and it had a honjin, where daimyo, court nobles and others rested and stayed, as well as a wakihonjin to supplement it. [82] To support the travelers and cargo that boats brought into the port, the town also carried on work such as lodging, meals, and the storage and transport of goods. The area around present-day Kyōbashi is called the center of the port not only because boats moored there, but because these post-town services and businesses were concentrated there. [2, 48]

Boats going upriver needed haulers and time

The Sanjikkokubune of the Yodo River were passenger boats whose name derives from their size, large enough to carry thirty koku of rice. According to an explanation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, they were about 17 meters long and carried about 28 passengers. Going up from Osaka to Fushimi required towing and took about 12 hours, while going down with the current took about 6 hours. Even on the same route, the time and labor differed greatly depending on whether a boat was going against the current. [DXH010]

There were also “kurawanka boats” that came alongside passenger boats to sell sake and food. This was a trade tied to boat travel between Osaka and Fushimi, and not all of the selling took place at the landings in Fushimi. In addition to inns and teahouses on land, work serving passengers while they were under way also arose from traffic on the Yodo River. [DXH010]

The Takasebune that went from Fushimi into Kyoto’s urban area were built with shallow, flat bottoms to suit the shallow waterway. According to the City of Kyoto’s explanation of the Funamawashiba site, 5 or 6 boats were tied together as a group, and 14 or 15 people hauled them with ropes up to Kyoto. Even with a canal that could carry large amounts of cargo, the work of the people who moved the boats remained indispensable. A funamawashiba was a stretch of water for turning boats around; both places for unloading cargo and places where boats could turn were needed. [DXH011]

The course of events on the Takase River becomes clear when the excavation project begun in 1611 is distinguished from the opening of the section between Nijō and Fushimi in 1614. Digging the river, connecting it to the Fushimi side and getting boats through involved several stages. Large Yodo River boats did not travel straight into Kyoto’s urban area; instead, Fushimi’s role became transferring cargo to boats suited to the width and depth of the waterway. [DXH011, DXH021]

Types of boats, and the system that authorized passage

“Kashobune” is not a boat name based on how much rice a boat could carry. It refers to boats holding a kasho, a shogunate-authorized pass. Whereas names such as sanjikkokubune and nijikkokubune relate to size, the name kashobune relates to the qualification to pass. Simply listing the boats that passed through the port as a single category would hide this difference. [DXH013, DXH021]

Around Fushimi there were also the port of Kusatsu, where fresh fish from the Seto Inland Sea were landed, and the port of Rokujizō, which connected from the Uji River and Ogura Pond side to the Yodo and Kizu rivers. Not all goods carried from Osaka to Kyoto were concentrated in one place; there was a transport network in which ports were used selectively according to the type of cargo and its destination. [DXH021]

Unloading from boats, storing in warehouses, sending on by cart: the work of the port was divided

Cargo that reached the landings around Kyōbashi passed through many hands before it was brought up onto the riverbank, stored and carried to Kyoto. Water-side porters (suijō nakashi) who carried cargo between boats and the riverbank, carters (kurumakata) who carried cargo landed ashore by cart, and wholesale agents (ton’ya) who took custody of cargo and organized its transport each handled their own stage of the work. On both banks downstream from Horizume on the Horikawa Canal, transport agents from Kyōbashi and Nishihama clustered, and the guilds of rice wholesalers, firewood dealers known as korikiya, and timber merchants were also located along the same stretch of river. It was a town that received bulky goods such as rice, fuel and timber at the waterside and sorted them by destination. [R2L002]

Kuruma-machi was the location of the Kyōbashi group of transport operators who used carts. The carters carried rice for the Imperial Palace in Kyoto and for court nobles, rice used at the Fushimi Magistrate’s Office, and miscellaneous goods landed on the Fushimi shore. Boat inns welcomed boat passengers, and boatwrights built and repaired boats. Because the work of lodging, transport, cargo handling and repair was concentrated close together, the boats could keep operating day after day. [R2L002]

In Yokoōji Village to the west, transport that transferred cargo from boats to carts was also carried on. The documents of the Fujita Gonjūrō family, who served as village headman (shōya) while running a transport business, contain records of negotiations between the agents of Yokoōji Village and Shimotoba Village over the quantities to be landed of kinri ryōmai, rice for the emperor’s palace, and of rice to be placed in the storehouses of Nijō Castle. Where cargo was landed also affected how transport fees and work opportunities from that point onward were distributed. Not only bridges and landings but also the agreements and accounts that set these allocations kept the flow of goods moving. [R2L009]

Boat owners and boatwrights in Yodo also supported Fushimi’s river transport

Some of the boats entering and leaving Fushimi were based downstream at Yodo. Excavation materials from the Kyoto City Archaeological Research Institute, based on the Tanabe Documents, show that the Yodo boats in Shōtoku 4 (1714) numbered 176 at Mizutare and 331 at Nōso, 507 in total. This is the number of nijikkokubune held at Yodo, not the number of boats entering the port of Fushimi in a single day. In Mizutare in Kyōhō 9 (1724), 158 of the 176 boats held are said to have been in operation. There was a difference between the number of boats owned and the number of boats actually able to carry cargo. [R3I012]

In the investigation of the Yodo Mizutare Ōshimozu-chō Site, timber from river boats that had reached the end of their use was found reused in early Edo-period revetments and stonework. Some boats survived even down to the members joining the bottom and sides of the hull, showing not only the work of rebuilding boats but also the work of dismantling old boats to reinforce the banks. In this river-transport town, boats and riverbanks were not simply built separately; materials from boats that had served their purpose were put to use in the port’s facilities. [R3I012]

At Fushimi-juku, river travel connected with the relay of porters and horses on the highways

Fushimi was also a post station on the route from Ōtsu on the Tōkaidō toward Osaka. When the route from Ōtsu through Fushimi, Yodo, Hirakata and Moriguchi to Osaka is included, it is called the “Fifty-Seven Stations of the Tōkaidō.” The road toward Sanjō in Kyoto and the road heading south to Fushimi were routes with different destinations. Daimyo and travelers who boarded boats at Fushimi chose between these land and water routes. [R2L008, R2L015]

At post stations, there was the work of providing people and horses to relay official documents and cargo on to the next station. Under the system, Fushimi’s tenmasho (post-horse station) was organized with 100 horses divided between Fushimi, with 67, and Rokujizō, with 33. The honjin near Kyōbashi was located close to both the boat landings and the tenmasho’s meeting office. A honjin was a facility for lodging and rest for daimyo and others, and its work differed from that of the tenmasho, which relayed people and horses. Several kinds of business, such as staying overnight, changing transport and reloading cargo, came together around Kyōbashi. [R2L002]

Such official transport also placed burdens on the surrounding villages. The duty imposed on villages to supplement a post station’s people and horses was called “sukegō.” The historical chronology of Kyoto Prefecture’s historical materials records that even on the 3rd day of the 6th month of Keiō 4, July 22, 1868 in the Gregorian calendar, after the change of government, the Ekiteishi (Office of Post Stations) established sukegō for Fushimi. The burden of people and horses did not disappear immediately with the Restoration, and the system was abolished in 1872. What supported travel in this port town was both the business of the inns and the people and horses mobilized from the villages. [R2L011]

A kimono-fabric business spread from Fushimi to Osaka, Nagoya and Edo

Commerce in Fushimi was not limited to inns and pleasure quarters serving boat passengers. Shimomura Hikoemon Shōkei, founder of the kimono-fabric (gofuku) business that later became Daimaru, opened “Daimonjiya” in Fushimi in 1717. A business dealing in bolts of cloth, the material for clothing, spread from this town to other regions. It opened Matsuya at Shinsaibashi in Osaka in 1726 and a shop in Nagoya in 1728, and in 1743 it expanded to Ōdenma-chō in Nihonbashi, Edo. [R2L010]

The Osaka store in 1726 is what Daimaru’s corporate history cites as the start of cash sales at marked prices. This was a method of selling for cash at prices shown in advance, and it did not happen at the same time as the founding in Fushimi in 1717. Tracing the place of founding, the store that changed the method of selling and the locations where stores later opened shows that Fushimi was also a starting point for nationwide commerce. [R2L010]

After the castle was gone, the Fushimi Magistrate administered the town and river transport

The Fushimi Magistrate was one of the “ongoku bugyō,” magistrates the shogunate placed in important locations outside Edo. In addition to governing the town and handling administration concerning residents, the magistrate was in charge of river transport on the Yodo River. The City of Kyoto’s guide to historic sites introduces the appointment of daimyo as Fushimi Magistrate as a feature showing the importance of the area. [48]

What drove the port town was not merchants’ free buying and selling alone. There were rules on the operation of shogunate-authorized boats, the governance of the town and traffic. The establishment of a magistrate’s office administering river transport also shows that Fushimi was an administrative base controlling the route between Kyoto and Osaka. The site of the magistrate’s office is in present-day Nishibugyō-chō, and it is not a place where Edo-period buildings survive intact. [2, 48]

At almost the same time as the castle was abandoned, a new castle was built at Yodo, southwest of Fushimi. Fushimi and Yodo were both places connected with transport, but the port town of Fushimi after the castle’s abandonment and the castle town of the Yodo Domain were separate cities. [2]

When a daimyo was appointed Fushimi Magistrate, that did not mean Fushimi became part of that daimyo’s domain. For example, Kobori Masamichi, magistrate in the Tenmei era, was lord of the Komuro Domain in Ōmi and held both his territory as a lord and the post of Fushimi Magistrate entrusted to him by the shogunate. The castle town of the Yodo Domain and the magistrate’s office administering Fushimi, which was under direct shogunate control, were not the same unit of governance, even though they were close to each other. [R2L001]

The magistrate’s work extended beyond arrests to annual land tax, rivers and forests

The form of the post of Fushimi Magistrate was not the same throughout the Edo period. Inoue Kōji, a historian who studied the organization of the Fushimi Magistrate’s Office, shows how, in 1666, the Fushimi Magistrate became independent of the Kamigata gundai, who administered the shogunate’s lands in the Kamigata region. The post was temporarily abolished in 1696–1698 and 1808–1810, and during those periods the Kyoto Town Magistrate also took charge of governing Fushimi. The post’s place in the official hierarchy, under the jurisdiction of the Kyoto Shoshidai and also receiving instructions from the Kyoto Town Magistrate, is a separate matter from the fact that many of those appointed were daimyo or taishin hatamoto with large territories and stipends; having a large territory did not necessarily mean ranking higher administratively. [R2L001]

The jurisdiction included the town of Fushimi, the castle hill and the surrounding villages. The Kyōto Oyakusho-muki Taigai Oboegaki, revised in 1714, gives the number of town wards as 263 in total, 248 in Fushimi and 15 in Rokujizō, and separately lists 8 villages: Horiuchi, Ōkamedani, Fukakusa, Jibushō, Keishō, Rokujizō, Misu and Mukaijima. These do not match the boundaries of present-day Fushimi Ward. A single office was responsible for administration within the town, the annual land tax of the surrounding farming villages and the management of the former castle area. [R2L001]

This practical work was supported by 10 yoriki and 50 dōshin. Yoriki were officials who directed the office’s assigned duties, and dōshin served under them. The division of duties in 1780 included river affairs (kawakata), rural affairs (jikata), accounts (kanjōkata), temples and shrines (jishakata), forests (sanrinkata) and the investigation of thieves (tōzoku aratame), with individuals holding several posts at once. “Jikata” was work concerned with governing farming villages. In the annual land-tax registers issued around the 11th month each year, the portion of the harvest lost to floods and other causes was deducted and the amount to be paid was shown. After payment, officials issued kaisai documents certifying that the annual tax had been paid in full, and they also took turns by month receiving petitions and other submissions. The officials continued to live in Fushimi even when the magistrate changed, carrying on the collection, record-keeping and receipt of submissions. [R2L001]

Residents also had their own town rules and accounts

Daily life in the town did not run solely on orders received from the magistrate’s office. In Sujikaibashi 4-chōme in Fukakusa, a town code from 1778, the “Chōchū no Sadamegaki,” survives. The Imamura family of 10-chōme is thought to have served as sōdai, delivering notices to village headmen and town elders, and the family also preserves the “Nenjū Machikata Shoiriyō Kanjōchō” (annual account book of town expenses) of 1814 for the 8 villages around Fushimi. There was a system for recording the rules observed within the town and the costs borne jointly. [R2L009]

Town elders (machidoshiyori), village headmen (shōya) and the magistrate’s yoriki were not different names for the same officials. Those on the town or village side who organized people and expenses, and those at the governing office who handled petitions and payments, exchanged documents. The communal work that supported this transport town included not only merchant guilds but also this kind of local administration. [R2L001, R2L009]

Some residents protested boat fares and the magistrate’s rule

Behind the account of a thriving port, there were also disputes among residents over fees and governance. At Genchū-ji in Shimoitabashi-chō stands a monument honoring Kobayashi Kanji. According to the City of Kyoto, in the Genna era (1615–1624), when fares for boats on the Yodo River rose and townspeople fell into hardship, Kanji, a dealer in firewood and charcoal, appealed directly to the shogunate. Transport costs were an issue not only for travelers riding the boats but also for the town’s businesses handling fuel and other goods. [48]

The monument to Shibaya Ihei at Shōnen-ji in Ishiya-chō tells of a separate event from the Tenmei era (1781–1789). Ihei and others planned a direct appeal against the administration of Fushimi Magistrate Kobori Masamichi. The city’s guide explains that while Masamichi was dismissed, Ihei died of illness during the investigation. [48]

These monuments are not records erected on the day of the events. Regarding Ihei and the others, the city states that the monuments were erected as part of a movement from the Meiji era onward to honor as “gimin” (righteous people) those who had worked hard for Fushimi. Both the era in which the appeals took place and the later era that commemorated these people remain in the town’s historic sites. [48]

A town elder also joined the direct appeal, and punishment continued after the dismissal

Maruya Kyūbei, a town elder, was also involved in the appeal concerning Kobori Masamichi. A town elder was responsible for running the town and acting as an intermediary with the authorities, so even on the side governed by the magistrate there were people who brought the town’s problems together. According to the summary of the monument commemorating Kyūbei, he appealed directly to the shogunate together with Monju Kusuke and others, and Masamichi was dismissed and his territory was also confiscated. [DXH012]

However, when the magistrate changed, those who had made the appeal were not immediately safe. Under the succeeding magistrate as well, Kusuke and Kyūbei were imprisoned and interrogated, and the inscription records that both died in prison on the 23rd day of the first month of 1788. Read together with the monument to Shibaya Ihei, it shows that the matter did not end with the downfall of a single magistrate, and that the burden on the residents who made the appeal lasted a long time. The term “gimin” also reflects how later local society evaluated and remembered such people. [DXH012]

Fishing on Ogura Pond was not work that anyone could freely do

Ogura Pond, south of Fushimi, was a body of water for catching fish and at the same time a place where fishing rights were shared. The fishing rights for the main area of water, called “Ōike” (the Great Pond) in the Edo period, were in principle held by three parties, Higashi-Imoarai Village, Ogura Village and Danjō-chō in Fushimi, and Misu Village joined by receiving part of Danjō-chō’s rights. The fishing grounds of each area cannot be understood by simply extending present-day municipal boundaries across the pond. [R2L003]

The tags (fuda) authorizing fishing were not issued one per person. According to a tally of documents published by the Uji City Historical Museum, in 1601 the number of tags was 15 for Danjō-chō and Misu combined, 5 for Higashi-Imoarai Village and 3 for Ogura Village, while the numbers of people were 30, 51 and 25 respectively. The parties holding the tags differed from the numbers of fishermen working under them, and the share of tax borne on the basis of the tags also differed from the number of fishermen. [R2L003]

The documents record that the levy on fishing took the form of delivering carp in Hideyoshi’s time and changed to payment in silver from 1601. In 1692 an additional levy called “kuchigin” was also introduced. Within the Danjō-chō guild, categories such as kokabu (old shares), chūkokabu (middle shares) and shinkabu (new shares) arose as shares were inherited and transferred, and the membership lists of 1811 and 1845 also show an expansion toward the Mukaijima side. This was fishing carried on not only through the skills of catching fish but through membership in the guild, the inheritance of rights and the allocation of levies. [R2L003]

A table recording the catch in 1856 lists crucian carp, carp, eel, catfish and small mixed fish. These are quantities recorded in the account books of the time and cannot be converted directly into modern units of weight. The later reclamation that turned the water into farmland was a change in the landscape and also a change that meant the loss of a place of these rights and livelihoods. The improvement works on the pond and rivers and subsequent land use are explained further in Fushimi in the Modern Era and After. [R2L003]

The Chushojima pleasure quarter was opened in the Genroku era with port visitors in mind

Chushojima was originally island-like land surrounded by the flow of the Uji River, and in the era of the castle town, daimyo residences were located there. Later, in the Genroku era, the Fushimi Magistrate carried out its redevelopment. A 2021 study by Kiyoyama Yōhei and Kanki Kiyoko of Kyoto University, which examined the formation of Chushojima’s urban area, sets out how a bridge was built in 1699 and how, in 1700, the Yanagi-machi pleasure quarter, which had been west of Awabashi, was moved there and became Higashi-Yanagi-chō and Nishi-Yanagi-chō. [44]

The construction of Hōraibashi, linking the old town to the north with Chushojima, and of the bridge linking it to the west side, was a project to create routes for people to visit. The City of Kyoto’s cultural heritage survey explains that it was a pleasure-quarter development made in anticipation of visitors passing through the port of Fushimi. A pleasure quarter (yūkaku) was a place established as a district where prostitution was officially sanctioned and controlled. Any account of the commerce that welcomed boat passengers and boatmen also includes the history of the women who were engaged there in selling sex. [44, 46]

The center of this former pleasure quarter was Higashi-Yanagi-chō and Nishi-Yanagi-chō. The area around the station now called “Chushojima” and Minami-Shinchi to the south cannot all be regarded as the same Edo-period pleasure quarter. Minami-Shinchi was urbanized in the modern era, after the railway station was built. The changes, distinguished by area and by period, are covered in detail in Fushimi in the Modern Era and After. [44, 45]

Faith at Chōken-ji and a festival using boats at Chushojima

Chōken-ji in Higashi-Yanagi-chō was founded in connection with the development of Chushojima. According to the City of Kyoto’s cultural heritage survey, it was founded in 1699 by separating Tamon-in from Sokujō-in, which was then in Ōkamedani, Fukakusa, and its principal image is Benzaiten. Its well-known red ryūgū-style gate also serves as a landmark when walking from the sake brewery district to Chushojima. [46, 48]

Chōken-ji has a tradition of Benten-bayashi festival music. The same survey describes how, in the Edo period, there was a procession of boats on which the women of the pleasure quarter played festival music, a festival in which lights were lit on the river. Today’s Benten-bayashi is explained as a revival, and it is distinguished from an event that has continued uninterrupted in the same form since the Edo period. [46]

Chushojima was a business district and at the same time a place where people lived, visited temples and took part in events. However, the lives and working conditions of individual women cannot be inferred from festival records alone. Residence restrictions, advance loans, taxation and other matters that can be confirmed for the modern era are explained in the section on the system and the people who worked there, with the scope of Kyoto Prefecture’s regulations and of the research indicated.

Chushojima was not Fushimi’s only pleasure quarter

To the north of Fushimi there was also the Shumoku-chō pleasure quarter. The City of Kyoto’s guide to historic sites introduces it as a hanamachi opened on the site of daimyo residences in Ebisu-chō, Fushimi. It was a business district in the north, away from Chushojima, and Fushimi had pleasure quarters from different periods and in different places. [48]

“Hanamachi” is a word also associated with the work of geiko, who entertain guests with the performing arts, and it does not always mean the same thing as “yūkaku.” In modern Kyoto in particular, an arrangement in which geiko and shōgi (licensed prostitutes) worked in the same district was institutionalized. Because the system and the names for these businesses changed over time, the establishment of the quarters in the Edo period needs to be traced separately from the business and working conditions of the Meiji era onward. [47, 51]

The incidents of the Bakumatsu era took place in a town of boat inns and highways

The incidents at the Teradaya in 1862 and 1866 differed both in who was in conflict and in the political circumstances. In the 1862 incident, Shimazu Hisamitsu, who held real power in the Satsuma Domain, was seeking to advance kōbu gattai, cooperation between the imperial court and the shogunate, and political reform led by powerful domains. Meanwhile, Arima Shinshichi and other Satsuma retainers had gathered at the Teradaya with a plan to kill the kanpaku (imperial regent) Kujō Hisatada and the Kyoto Shoshidai Sakai Tadaaki and raise an armed uprising. Hisamitsu sent retainers to put a stop to this, and the attempt at persuasion on the 23rd day of the 4th month of Bunkyū 2 turned into a sword fight. It was an incident in which methods of reform came into conflict within the same Satsuma Domain. This date is in the old lunisolar calendar. [R2L004]

The 1866 raid was an incident in which the Fushimi Magistrate’s side tried to capture Sakamoto Ryōma. Ryōma, who had left the Tosa Domain without permission, was involved in procuring ships and goods through the Kameyama Shachū in Nagasaki and was mediating an alliance between Satsuma and Chōshū, which had been at odds. The Kōchi Prefectural Sakamoto Ryōma Memorial Museum explains that on the night of the 23rd day of the first month of Keiō 2, 2 days after the Satchō Alliance was concluded on the 21st day of the first month, officials of the magistrate’s office burst into the Teradaya. Boat inns were transport hubs frequented by domain officials and men who had left their domains, and also places within reach of the authorities’ crackdown on political activity. The dates given here are also in the old calendar. [R2L005, R2L006]

With Ryōma was Miyoshi Shinzō of the Chōfu Domain, a branch domain of Chōshū. The memorial museum also describes how Narasaki Ryō, known as Oryō, who worked at the Teradaya, warned them of the danger and how Miyoshi helped Ryōma escape. However, details of scenes such as how Oryō, who was bathing, noticed the danger and what she was wearing when she came up differ from one account to another. Not all later retellings and tourist explanations can be treated as verified contemporary fact. [R2L005, R2L006]

After the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, withdrew to Osaka, Fushimi became a battlefield

Tokugawa Yoshinobu was the 15th and last shogun of the Edo shogunate. In 1867 he carried out the Taisei Hōkan, returning governing power to the imperial court, but that did not resolve the armed confrontation. After the coup that proclaimed the Restoration of Imperial Rule, Yoshinobu withdrew to Osaka Castle, and in the fighting the following year, former shogunate forces heading for Kyoto clashed on the Toba Highway and in Fushimi’s urban area with the side, centered on Satsuma and Chōshū, that blocked their entry into Kyoto. Yoshinobu himself was in Osaka and did not personally command from the front at Gokōnomiya or the Fushimi Magistrate’s Office. [DXH030]

The Battle of Toba-Fushimi began on the 3rd day of the first month of Keiō 4. It was a battle in which the former shogunate side advancing from Osaka toward Kyoto clashed with the new government side, whose main forces were Satsuma and Chōshū, blocking its entry into Kyoto. Gokōnomiya and the Fushimi Magistrate’s Office, though close to each other, became opposing positions, and an urban area that had been used for travel and commerce turned into a battlefield. This 3rd day of the first month is also in the old calendar and does not mean January 3 in today’s calendar. [R2L007, R2L012]

In the Battle of Toba-Fushimi in 1868, the former shogunate army landed at Kyōbashi, entered the Fushimi Magistrate’s Office and fought the new government army, which had set up its position at Gokōnomiya. Much of the urban area burned, and the port town was also damaged. The Teradaya was also damaged and was rebuilt on the plot to the west, so the present building is not the same building that stood at the time of the two Bakumatsu-era incidents. [2, 33]

The movements of the former shogunate side, which came off the boats at Kyōbashi, advanced to the magistrate’s office and pushed north along the highway, show that the water and land routes that had carried people and goods since the Edo period also became routes for sending troops. [2]

The imperial brocade banner shows that the military clash widened into a war over the legitimacy of government

The imperial brocade banners (kinki) and military flags used by the new government army also signaled the existence of a new regime organizing troops under the imperial court. The Boshin Shoyō Kinki oyobi Gunki Shinzu, held at the National Archives of Japan, was produced by the painter Ukita Kasei over about 2 years from 1888, copying 17 types of flags in 34 drawings and compiling them into 4 scrolls. It is a record in which the later government precisely documented the flags used in the war, not a depiction of the moment the flags were raised on the battlefield. Rather than reducing the reasons for victory and defeat to a single one based on the impression made by the brocade banner, it is necessary to look at the movement of troops together with the political change in whose orders they were fighting under. [R2L007]

After the defeat, on the 6th day of the first month in the old calendar, Yoshinobu left Osaka Castle and returned to Edo aboard the warship Kaiyō Maru, off Tenpōzan. On the 9th of the same month, Osaka Castle also went up in flames. The fighting in Fushimi and Yoshinobu’s departure from Osaka took place in different locations, but they were part of one continuous process of the regime’s collapse. These dates are in the old calendar of the time and have not been converted directly into Western calendar dates. [DXH030]

This war did not end with the street fighting in Fushimi. Even after the surrender of Edo Castle, fighting continued at Ueno and in Hokuetsu and Tōhoku, and the whole sequence up to the defeat of the former shogunate side at Hakodate in May 1869 is called the Boshin War. The clash in Fushimi was the starting point of a war to establish a new system of rule across the country. [R2L007]

Afterward, the port in Fushimi was redeveloped and railways opened, and the places where people worked and lived changed. In Fushimi in the Modern Era and After, you can continue reading about the changes in the canals, electric railways, the sake brewing industry and Chushojima.

References

• City of Kyoto: The Prosperity of a Port and Commercial City
• City of Kyoto: A Tour of Historic Sites and Famous Places for Fushimi Ward Residents
• Kiyoyama Yōhei and Kanki Kiyoko (2021), Characteristics Arising from the Development Process of a Modern Sprawl Urban Area as Seen in Chushojima Minami-Shinchi
• City of Kyoto: Comprehensive Survey Report on Kyoto’s Cultural Heritage, Chapter 4
• Kiyoyama Yōhei and Kanki Kiyoko (2026), The Spatial Character of Snack Bars as Seen in Chushojima’s Cluster of Small Drinking Establishments
• Takimoto Tetsuya (2020), An Economic-Historical Study of Kyoto’s Hanamachi in the Interwar Period
• Matsuda Yukiko (2012), Repositioning Geiko as Labor
• City of Kyoto: Kyoto Heritage “Fushimi, the Port Town Linking Kyoto and Osaka”
• Miyako Meisho Zue (Ukai Collection, National Institute of Japanese Literature; 1786 edition)
• Tenpō era, Jōshū Fushimi Machi-zu (Fukakusa Archives 024-046B)

• Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Shimo-Toba Fushimi Kassen no Zu (December 1874, LACMA)

• Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism: The Excavation of the Takase River by the Suminokura Father and Son

• Shiga Prefecture: Honjin and Wakihonjin

• MLIT Yodogawa River Office: History of the Misu Lock

• MLIT Yodogawa River Office: The Development of the Misu Lock

• DXH010 MLIT Yodogawa River Office: The Blessings the Yodo River Brought to Its Basin
• DXH011 Kyoto City Official Travel Guide (Kyoto Kankō Navi): Takase River Funamawashiba Site
• DXH013 City of Kyoto: Fushimi, the Port Town Linking Kyoto and Osaka
• DXH021 City of Kyoto: History of Fushimi Ward, The Prosperity of a Port and Commercial City
• DXH012 City of Kyoto: Monument to Fushimi Gimin Maruya Kyūbei, Summary of the Inscription

• DXH030 Osaka Prefectural Archives: Osaka Archives No. 46, The Formation of the Prefectural System and the Birth of Osaka Prefecture

• R2L001: Inoue Kōji, “Changes in the Yoriki of the Fushimi Magistrate,” Bulletin of the Cultural Properties Protection Division, City of Kyoto, No. 3 (2020)

• R2L002: Kasamatsu Akio, Kanai Manzō and Nagao Yoshimitsu, “The Rise and Decline of Fushimi Port, Japan’s Largest River Port” (1988)
• R2L003: Uji City Historical Museum, Documents of the Ogura Pond Fishermen’s Guild (2002)
• R2L004: Curatorial Division, Kagoshima Prefectural Museum of Culture Reimeikan, “The Teradaya Incident”
• R2L005: Kōchi Prefectural Sakamoto Ryōma Memorial Museum, “About Ryōma”
• R2L006: Kōchi Prefectural Sakamoto Ryōma Memorial Museum, “Ryōma FAQ”
• R2L007: National Archives of Japan, “The Battle of Toba-Fushimi (The Boshin War Begins)”
• R2L008: Suzuki Fumihiko, “Unraveling Town Histories through Route Prices 70: Fushimi Ward, Kyoto City,” Finance, December 2025
• R2L009: City of Kyoto, Documents of Fushimi Ward: Commentary
• R2L010: J. Front Retailing, “History of Daimaru”
• R2L011: Kyoto Institute, Library and Archives (Kyoto-gaku Rekisaikan), Historical Materials Archive, July 22, 1868
• R2L012: Kyoto National Museum, “150th Anniversary of the Taisei Hōkan: The Battle of Toba-Fushimi” (2017)

• R2L015: Tōkaidō Scenic Byway, “400th Anniversary of the Fifty-Seven Stations of the Tōkaidō”

• R3I012: Kyoto City Archaeological Research Institute, Press Release on the 3rd Investigation of the Nagaokakyō Site and Yodo Mizutare Ōshimozu-chō Site